Posts Tagged "today"

  • The Daily Grind: Do you judge all MMOs by the same standard?

    Hots Games
    Xsyon - player-created temple

    Filed under: Fantasy, Culture, Game mechanics, MMO industry, Opinion, The Daily Grind, Xsyon, Sandbox

    One of the challenges facing sandbox developers is the fact that recent themepark MMORPGs have raised the bar in terms of smooth launches and relatively bug-free experiences. Aside from EVE Online, most of the current sandboxes on offer are small indie affairs known as much for their rough-around-the-edges implementation as for their feature innovations.

    And yet, many so-called sandbox fans seem to expect games like Xsyon, Darkfall, and others to be as polished as World of Warcraft, RIFT, and other themeparks with fewer features and several times the budget.

    For today’s Daily Grind, we’d like to know how much (if any) slack you cut developers of sandbox and/or indie MMOs. Do you hold these games to the same standard that you hold a triple-A themepark?

    Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today’s Daily Grind!

    The Daily Grind: Do you judge all MMOs by the same standard? originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 17 May 2012 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • YouSendIt lands new CEO with Brad Garlinghouse

    Hots News
    brad-garlinghouse-yousendit-ceo

    Former AOL executive Brad Garlinghouse will join cloud storage and file-sharing company YouSendIt at its new CEO, the company announced today.

    Garlinghouse will replace Ivan Koon, who served as YouSendIt’s CEO for six years. Garlinghouse was formerly AOL’s head of AOL’s Silicon Valley division and before that served as CEO of DialPad, which was acquired by Yahoo.

    YouSendIt wants to be a major cloud storage player for businesses, but it will have to slug it out with Box, Egnyte, Accellion, and now Google with its Drive cloud storage product.

    “YouSendIt is a rare gem — it has quietly built the leading business in this space by focusing on execution,” Garlinghouse said, in a statement. “Used within a whopping 98% of the Fortune 500 and with more than 30 million registered users — the company is well positioned to continue its dramatic growth. YouSendIt has already demonstrated a track record of solid financial growth. I’m proud to lead YouSendIt into this next phase.”

    Campbell, Calif.-based YouSendIt currently has 585,000 paid subscribers out of its 30 million users. The company says it generated a record revenue in 2011 and that it was up 61 percent year-over-year.

    Filed under: cloud

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  • More foldy e-readers on the way. This one’s in color

    Hots News
    Plastic Logic flexible, color e-reader

    Plastic Logic demo-ed its flexible, color e-reader today — another screen to add to the growing reality that e-readers may one day act like paper.

    According to Engadget, Plastic Logic received a funding round of $700 million from Rusnano, which the company has used to create the new screen. The screen is able to display over 4,000 different colors, and has 1.2 million plastic transistors. It also used the funding to deploy its e-textbook reader to schools in Russia.

    Flexible e-reader screens are gaining a lot of popularity. As tablets become faster and more exciting, e-readers, which are naturally easier on the eyes, are expected to gain some cool new features as well. Flexible e-ink screens create that reading-a-magazine-or-newspaper feel that, honestly, just looks cool.  They can bend and fold like paper, though you won’t be able to fold your e-reader like a soft cover book just yet. What’s more impressive is that these new screens, Plastic Logic’s in particular, are being designed to keep images true and not distort them  as folding a screen might otherwise do.

    In March, LG released details of its flexible e-reader screen. LG referred to the screen as an electronic paper display, which stands about six inches tall and sports 1024×758 pixels. The screen can be bent at a 40 degree angle and can weigh half as much as its glass counterpart. Despite being new technology for today’s market of e-readers, LG believes these flexible, plastic displays will even be cheaper to produce than glass.

    Check out the video of Plastic Logic’s color, flexible screen below:

    via Engadget

    Filed under: VentureBeat

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  • Fujitsu collar monitor proves that all dogs go to the cloud

    Hots Technology
    Image

    Sure, you’re having a grand old time in the cloud, but what fun is it, really, if you can’t bring your pets along? Fujitsu today announced a new collar-mounted device designed to monitor your dog’s activity level. This one does more than just filling up a Twitter stream, however, aimed at actually providing helpful health monitoring, including activity, external temperature and the like to a cloud-based health service set to launch later this year. According to Fujitsu, the device is small and lightweight, with minimal power consumption, assuring that your canine can wear it at all times, so you can monitor your pet’s activity while you’re away. Not much in the way of availability at present, but you can find a bit more info in the PR after the break.

    Continue reading Fujitsu collar monitor proves that all dogs go to the cloud

    Fujitsu collar monitor proves that all dogs go to the cloud originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 May 2012 17:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • AmEx’s new local offers pose threat to Groupon

    Hots News

    American Express is releasing a new version of its iPhone app today that lets users find offers at nearby businesses. The new feature, dubbed “My Offers,” represents a threat to Groupon, which has tried to entice merchants to market through its mobile product, Groupon Now. (Full disclosure: I have a very small stake in AmEx and a variety of short positions in Groupon.)

    Since the new app shows AmEx wants to move beyond payments into performance-based marketing, it shows AmEx could also become a threat to companies like Google and Facebook.

    The app will go live at 3 p.m. Pacific.

    For consumers, AmEx’s My Offers holds the promise of better targeted offers. The app uses a cardholder’s spending history (the “spend graph”) and location to determine the most relevant offers. For merchants, it offers the ability to reach new customers without discounting to existing customers. Merchants can choose to exclude consumers who have made a purchase at their business within the last year from a promotion.

    Cannibalization of existing full-price customers is one of the biggest reasons Groupons can be unprofitable for small businesses. Targeting is, in general, a much better approach to discounting than blanket discounts, and using transaction history is one of the most effective ways to do it.

    Merchants can also choose to extend the offer to everyone on the network or create loyalty-based offers for repeat customers. That’s a level of targeting that hasn’t typically been available to small businesses.

    Most of AmEx’s offers to date have been focused on national merchants. “It’s time now to get into helping more of the local merchants and to make sure that we have the tools that work for them,” said Ed Gilligan, vice chairman of American Express. “It’s a very cluttered space for small merchants, and we want to make sure we’re learning and that this works for them.”

    “It’s less about trying to say can we do a Groupon Now or replicate what someone else is doing,” Gilligan said. “It’s more of a continuation of what we started, which is connect cardmembers to the right merchant. And help both.”

    Because the processing of the discounts happens on the back end by AmEx’s computers, there is no staff training required for local merchants. That’s often an obstacle to running deals. On the consumer side, the consumer just has to swipe the card to pay; there’s no coupon or paperwork required.

    AmEx is not charging small merchants initially.

    “We made the decision that we didn’t want price to get in the way of small merchants starting to get involved,” said Luke Gebb, VP, global network marketing. “Where we are now is just trying  to attract as many small businesses as possible, prove that we can add value to them.”

    AmEx is initially focusing the local offers on New York and Los Angeles. It will be reaching merchants through a variety of channels, including feet on the street. Some of the initial local offers include Amy’s Bread and Clinton Gourmet Market in New York and Trust! Hair Salon and Freebird’s in Los Angeles.  Tonight, there should be hundreds of offers in New York and LA. A few national offers are also available, including Dunkin’ Donuts, Baskin Robbins, and FedEx.

    The company expects to launch an Android app eventually but hasn’t announced timing on that yet.

    Unlike Groupon Now, merchants can’t currently use AmEx’s platform for yield management.

    “If, over time, [small merchants] want to go to more of a yield management system, we will adjust and adapt with them,” Gilligan said. “We wanted to launch with tools that are pretty simple to use.”

    In addition to seeing offers from the AmEx app, consumers will be able to see offers that have been loaded onto their cards via AmEx’s partnerships with Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare.

    Although the technology and the thinking behind it is exciting, it’s a challenging problem that requires winning the attention of both consumers and merchants.

    According to Gilligan, US users have downloaded the AmEx app more than 3 million times. That’s still a small number compared with others in the space. Foursquare claims 20 million registered users. Looking at the number of active users, which is more meaningful, Yelp has 6.3 million monthly active users and Facebook has 488 million monthly active users.

    To date, there really hasn’t been much reason to download the AmEx app. The functionality has focused primarily on account servicing: viewing transaction history, looking at Membership Rewards points, and paying bills. These are relatively infrequent tasks that many accomplish on the Web. Adding offers to the app will give users another reason to download.

    If it saves me from seeing yet another ad for laser hair removal, I’m all for it.

    Filed under: VentureBeat

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  • Ex-Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson told board he had cancer

    Hots News

    Scott Thompson, who resigned his weekend as chief executive of Yahoo, reportedly disclosed to the company’s board of directors and several colleagues last week that he has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

    The news was reported this evening by the WSJ.

    The disclosure by Thompson, who is 54, came just as pressure was peaking for to step down because of errors on his bio about his academic accomplishments. According to the WSJ’s sources, the cancer diagnosis also contributed to his decision to step down from Yahoo.

    Yahoo announced today that Thompson has resigned as CEO.

    Filed under: VentureBeat

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  • New CEO Ross Levinsohn, in message to Yahoos, says “focus on the momentum”

    Hots News

    After an agressive reign that ended in a sordid resume scandal, Scott Thompson, just four months into his job as CEO, is out at Yahoo. Intermin CEO Ross Levinsohn, appointed to the position Sunday, is already in communication with Yahoos about the regime change.

    “We have just announced very significant news regarding the leadership of our Company,” Levinsohn said in an email message, obtained by VentureBeat, that went out to all Yahoo employees Sunday afternoon. “The Board of Directors has appointed Fred Amoroso Chairman of the Board and has asked me to take on the role of interim Chief Executive Officer, to replace Scott Thompson, who has left the Company.”

    Just over a week ago it was discovered that Thompson had padded his resume with a computer science degree he did not receive. The fictitious degree, uncovered by activist shareholder Dan Loeb of Third Point, somehow made it into legal filings with the SEC. Yahoo and Thompson botched communication around the error, causing a fall-out of epic proportion that ended today with a shamed Thompson exiting the company.

    Levinsohn, pictured left with former chief product officer Blake Irving, asked staff to “focus on the momentum we’ve created over the last few months,” and painted today’s news as the end of high-level upheaval at Yahoo.

    “Importantly, today’s announcements lay to rest the unfortunate and serious distractions surrounding our senior leadership and the composition of our Board going forward,” he said. “Today’s announcements really boil down to this: following these changes, a transformation and renewal at the Board level that began in August of last year is now complete.”

    Levinsohn, who was heading up global media initiatives for Yahoo, joined the company in late 2010 and was considered by many to be a CEO candidate after Carol Bartz was fired. He previously served as the president of Fox Interactive Media, a News Corporation-owned entity. According to his Yahoo bio, Levinsohn has a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from The American University.

    Oddly the letter, the first internal confirmation of Thompson’s exit, was only sent out to Yahoos after the company had announced the leadership changes in a press release.

    We’ve included the entire message below.

    Yahoos –

    We have just announced very significant news regarding the leadership of our Company. The Board of Directors has appointed Fred Amoroso Chairman of the Board and has asked me to take on the role of interim Chief Executive Officer, to replace Scott Thompson, who has left the Company. In addition, the Board also announced that it has reached a settlement with our major shareholder Third Point LLC, enabling us to avoid a proxy contest.

    As a part of the Board’s agreement with Third Point, Daniel S. Loeb, Harry J. Wilson and Michael J. Wolf are joining the Yahoo! Board. In connection with their addition, the members of our Board who were not planning to stand for re-election have decided to step down immediately to accelerate the leadership transition for the new Board in advance of the annual meeting. We’ve attached the press release outlining all of these changes for your review.

    Importantly, today’s announcements lay to rest the unfortunate and serious distractions surrounding our senior leadership and the composition of our Board going forward. I know that Fred and the new Yahoo! Board are looking forward to working constructively to stabilize the leadership team and to further accelerate the progress we have made in reinvigorating Yahoo!, executing against the Company’s strategic initiatives and enhancing stockholder value.

    For my part, I want you to know that I am honored to lead this great company as interim Chief Executive Officer, and I accept that responsibility with enthusiasm and confidence for three reasons above all others: As I have said since I joined Yahoo in 2010, I believe in the tremendous strength and value of our brand, and in our relationship with our users and partners; I believe in the substantial organizational, operational and strategic progress we have made in recent months in spite of the internal and external challenges we have faced; and most of all, I believe with all my heart in all of you and your dedication to continuing to make this company great. What we achieve in this company is substantial on each and every day, on a scale rarely matched across the globe. I’m incredibly proud to be a part of this team.

    This may seem like a great deal of news to digest, but as you are all keenly aware, Yahoo! is a dynamic, global company in a dynamic, global industry, so change — sometimes unexpected and sometimes at lightning speed — is something we will continue to live with and something we should embrace. However, today’s announcements really boil down to this: following these changes, a transformation and renewal at the Board level that began in August of last year is now complete.

    Of course, these changes will also raise new questions along with those it answers. I invite you to bring those questions to me, or any member of the executive leadership team, and we will answer them as forthrightly and promptly as we can. Please also look for an invite and plan to attend an all-hands meeting we are organizing for Monday afternoon – we look forward to speaking with you further at that time.

    In the meantime, I know there is one thing we should definitely all be doing in light of this news, and that is to focus on the momentum we’ve created over the last few months. Many of you have heard me talk about the possibilities we have, and about the opportunities in front of us. In spite of the very bumpy road we’ve traveled, we are achieving genuine and meaningful successes in the marketplace every day and heading in the right direction.

    You deserve at least as much from your leadership as you give. I take that responsibility very seriously and promise to give you my all while I’m serving as interim CEO.

    I want to close by thanking you for your commitment to Yahoo! and your continued hard work. To be a Yahoo is to be resilient, and you are very much appreciated. Let’s go on the offensive starting today!

    Ross Levinsohn Interim Chief Executive Officer

    Photo credit: Yahoo/Flickr

    Filed under: VentureBeat

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  • The biggest games of 2012, according to Walmart.com’s horrible copy writers

    Hots News

    Walmart.com’s hilariously uninformed and grammatically unsound product description for Diablo III has been spreading across the Internet today. The unfortunate blurb on the store’s website includes such head-scratching comments as “The Diablo III PC/Mac Game revolves around an interesting plot which will keep you spell bound. while you are playing,” and “Bring home the PC video game to solve the mysteries of the mighty Barbarians.”

    To be fair, anyone who knows how ridiculous that description is has already decided whether or not they’re buying the game on Tuesday, and people who don’t know what Diablo is probably shouldn’t be looking to that site for their purchasing decisions. The Internet likes to have its fun, though, so I think it would be in Walmart’s best interests to start writing up every product this way. I’ll get them started with some of the biggest releases coming out this year.

    Max Payne 3

    Max Payne 3 is an action-shooter game for the Xbox 360/PlayStation 3/PC. It is a game where you shoot guys and take Max Payne’s trademark pain killers. Fight your way through an engrossing action pulp action story and take Max Payne to such exotic locales as New York, Rio de Janeiro, and stadium. Keep fighting for revenge no matter what! gets in your way.

    Max Payne 3 Xbox360/Playstation 3/PC Game:

    Fight through legions of enemies as the legendary Max Payne Max Payne’s hair changes dynamically to fit the story Use guns and take cover to engage in action.

    Lollipop Chainsaw

    Fight many zombies as iconic character Juliet in this Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game Lollipop Chain Saw. Juliet knows about zombies because she studied really hard. She is in high school. Take your trusty chainsaw and best friend head to work on the evil foes to destroy their plot and solve their mind-bending puzzles. There will be only one cheerleader left at the end of this awful night, and you’d better believe it’s going to be this one.

    Lollipop Chainsaw  Xbox360/Playstation 3 Game:

    Fight zombies with kicks and pom-poms and, as always, the sharpest chainsaw in the world Dress up in cute outfits to gain magical powers and abilities Engage in hardcore coop mode with your best friend, Head.

    Resident Evil 6

    Zombies are back in the latest chapter of the epic surviving horror classic series. Series heroes Leon F. Kennedy and Chris Redfield join forces for the first time to fight the dreaded “C Virus” once again in a crazy post-apocalyptic wasteland. This horror game continues to prove how dangerous zombies are, and it’s up to you to beat them down for good on the Xbox 360 and/or Playstation 3.

    Resident Evil 6 Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 Game:

    Fight zombies! More zombies you ask? Yes, way more Unleash powerful weapons like Pistol and Shotgun, that only the most elite players can master.

    Assassin’s Creed III

    It has been a few years, but The Assassin is back on the Xbox 360 and PlaySation 3. In this action-stealth-city game, The Assassin travels back in time to stop anti-American forces before they can stop the future from happening. You don’t have to have played the other games to understand this one. Many people will be killed if they get in The Assassin’s way on his quest of vengeance and justice.

    Assassin’s Creed III Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 Game:

    Return to the Amnious, the mysterious source of The Assassin’s power Ride on horses for the first time since the last game Play the single player game in engaging multiplayer battles that add many features like Stealth Kills and Hiding.

    GamesBeat 2012 is VentureBeat’s fourth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. This year we’re calling on speakers from the hottest mobile, social, PC, and console companies to debate new ways to stay on pace with changing consumer tastes and platforms. Join 500+ execs, investors, analysts, entrepreneurs, and press as we explore the gaming industry’s latest trends and newest monetization opportunities. The event takes place July 10-11 in San Francisco, and you can get your early-bird tickets here.

    Filed under: games, gbunfiltered

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  • Citrix makes surprise $100K awards to ScriptRock and AppEnsure

    Hots News
    Synergy-2012

    Citrix, the big virtualization and cloud company, awarded a $100,000 check each to startups ScriptRock and AppEnsure, as part of a start-up competition held today in San Francisco. The move was a surprise because Citrix had planned to write only one check.

    ScriptRock is an Australian company that automates checks of applications and other infrastructure for large companies to make those resources run correctly. It tests file systems, file integrity, configuration files, database hosted configuration and so on. It already serves four of the largest financial institutions in Australia, including ANZ, Bankwest and OnePath.

    AppEnsure CEO Colin Macnab

    AppEnsure, meanwhile, provides IT managers a single, integrated view of all the applications and infrastructure running in their company. The AppEnsure appliances perform root cause analysis of those resources, allowing managers to keep them running more smoothly. The company said its product is 85 percent complete, and that its first release would be ready within six months. Judges voted for the company in part because of its market potential. The company said there’s a $12 billion market for its product in 2012, increasing to $16.3 billion in 2015.

    Citrix made the cash awards to the companies on the spot, after a panel judges, including VentureBeat’s Matt Marshall, voted on which startups they liked the most. The vote was close: While Citrix had planned to write only one check of $100K to the winner of five finalists (out of 80 applicants), the company’s executives decided to award two checks after ScriptRock and AppEnsure tied in the final vote by the judges. In addition, early in the vote, judge Jason Calacanis said he’d cough up $25,000 more for ScriptRock. It wasn’t clear whether he is also giving cash to AppEnsure.

    The judges gave the ScriptRock high marks based on the progress the company has already made. Scriptrock said Australian bank ANZ, for example, could soon be spending $1.6M annually for ScriptRock’s service, and that only counting the servers it would run on. Desktops can also run the ScriptRock service, which would mean additional business. The company is looking to close a $650K seed round in the near future.

    The competition was held in San Francisco at the Citrix Startup.Synergy event.

    The winners will also be included in Citrix’s next accelerator class, which can include up to $250K in seed investment, an office in Silicon Valley, and help from Citrix with customer development.

    Other finalists included the following:

    Hey Maya – The company offers a service that lets you delegate boring stuff to a virtual admin. It lets you do everything from managing your contacts, to filling out expense reports to finding out the best flight and hotel information for travel.

    CumuLogic — The platform-as-a-service company offers a way for companies to switch between private and public clouds. It hopes to launch next month.

    BuildAR — The company offers a new kind of augmented reality technology, building much of the technology directly into the browser, and building on top of HTML5. Some of the judges thought it offered the coolest technology of the competition, but they questioned whether the market is ready for it.

    [Disclosure: Citrix sponsored DEMO, a conference co-produced by VentureBeat. As part of that sponsorship relationship, VentureBeat agreed to partner with Citrix on the event, including having Editor-in-Chief Matt Marshall moderate an investor panel. He also helped judge the competition.]

    Below is a video of how ScriptRock works:

    Filed under: VentureBeat

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  • Ustream is pissed about DDOS attack, may launch Russian site tomorrow

    Hots News
    Ustream Brad Hunstable

    Ustream is undergoing what chief executive Brad Hunstable says is the “largest and most coordinated DDOS attack Ustream has ever seen” today and the team is pissed. The attack is rumored to be an attempt to censor a Russian citizen journalist reporting on protests in the county.

    “We’re a business, we lost a lot money today,” said Hunstable (pictured above) in an interview with VentureBeat. “This was on a scale that I’m not sure many websites would be able to fight off. This was one of the biggest denial of service attacks on the Internet.”

    Live video of protests in Russia on Ustream’s homepage

    A denial of service attack is when an individual or group of individuals attempt to access a website at hyper speeds, clogging up the network and eventually bringing the tired website down. Hunstable and his Ustream team have dealt with two previous denial of service attacks pertaining to citizen journalists streaming video of protests in Russia since the reelection of President Vladimir Putin. The first two DDOS attacks, which occurred on December 6th 2011 and January 6th 2012, were not at the scale of today’s.

    Hunstable is not taking this lying down, however. Within the last hour (since the writing of this post) Ustream has finally come back up and the team is squarely featuring the Russian citizen journalist, ReggaMortis1, on its homepage. It’s a veritable “don’t mess with my users” move, which Hunstable (who mentioned he was a West Point graduate) says could turn into a full fledged Russian website tomorrow.

    “We’re going to huddle up late tonight and take a step back and figure out what we can do differently,” Hunstable said. “I told my guys, I want us to roll out a Russian Ustream tomorrow.”

    The team got a tip-off from a Russian user who revealed two names of suspected attackers. Riots have broken out across Russia. Putin, who was recently reelected to Russia’s leadership was inaugurated this past Monday.

    “We may not agree with what [all our users] have to say, but in my opinion everyone has the right to speak,” Hustable told us. “Today you could summarize that there was an attack on Internet freedom.”

    Brad Hunstable image via PoliticalActivityLaw.com/Flickr

    Filed under: VentureBeat

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